Why I stopped working on the Bongard Problems

Please note: this text was written in
the summer of 2007, and explains why I, the author, took a long
respite from working on my research topics, after the summer of
2006. At the time when I wrote this, and up until around 2011, I had
really stopped my research — so the title was correct up to then.
Later, after 2011, I timidly started working again, on my own, for
reasons explained near the end of this article, and obtaining some
results. So the title is not correct anymore. It should be: “Why I
Forced Myself to Take a Long Break from My Research”. Still, I
preferred to keep this article on the web so as to document an
important period of my life and explain my attitude and thoughts on scientific
research in general.

A web page that I wrote some 10 years
ago (this one) explains the wonderful domain of my research
in cognitive science, the Bongard Problems.
Today, a decade later, for all the keen interest that I
still retain for Bongard problems, I have stopped working
on this domain for some ethical reasons. I would
like to explain what these ethical reasons are, because I
think they concern everyone of us; not just cognitive
scientists like me, not even just scientists in general,
but literally everybody. Here is a brief
overview:

First, what are the
Bongard problems? You can best understand the answer by
clicking on the link above, but to save you from going on
a tangent, I’ll simply say here that Bongard problems
are visual puzzles: you look at something like the
drawing with the 6+6 boxes below, and you try to figure
out why the six boxes on the left have been separated
from the six boxes on the right. What is it that the six
boxes on the left have in common?

Bongard problem #38: What do all the
boxes on the left have in common? What about those on the
right?

My research focused on writing a
computer program, which I called Phaeaco, that
could solve such problems automatically. Actually, to
write just any program that can do that, is not
remarkable at all. How it is done is of utmost
importance, because on one hand there are trivial,
mechanical, and uninteresting programs, and on the other
hand there are more human-like programs to solve such
problems. My dissertation describes a computational
architecture for cognition (that’s what Phaeaco is)
that, among other things, can solve Bongard
problems, displaying a more-or-less human-like
performance.

In other words, the
goal of my research was not to write simply a program
that solves Bongard problems, but to write a program that
implements some fundamental principles of
cognition, which help it
exhibit — in a rudimentary way — some aspects of
human behavior, or of human-like thinking.

Okay. So where are the ethical issues
in all that?

They’re in the remote possibility of
building intelligent machines that act, and even appear,
as humans. If this is achieved, eventually intelligent
weapons of mass destruction will be built, without
doubt. That’s what I would like to explain below.

Take a look at the
picture of the woman on the left. Does she look real? She’s
not. She’s a doll, called an “actroid”. You can
learn more about actroids by clicking on the image, but
in summary, an actroid is “a humanoid robot with strong
graphic human-likeness” that “can mimic such lifelike
functions as blinking, speaking, and breathing”. The
specific one shown in the picture is an interactive robot
with the ability to recognize and process speech, and
respond in kind. Such robots include enough “artificial
intelligence” to fend off intrusive motions, such as a
slap or a poke, but react differently to more gentle
kinds of touch, such as a pat on the arm. “The skin is
composed of silicone and appears highly realistic.”
(Without useless details under the clothes, I suppose.)

Now, picture this kind of robot in the
not-so-remote future. Imagine that she (or he, or it) has
enough computational power in the computer situated in
her skull (or in her thorax, doesn’t matter where) to
allow her to behave naturally like a human being. And
also imagine that in her belly she harbors not guts
(which would be useless to her), but a small nuclear
bomb.

Nor am I talking about a nuclear bomb
capable of annihilating a whole city, but one that can
turn to smoke perhaps a few building blocks and turn to
uninhabitable a great number more.

(Note: A reader raised the
objection that there is a limit to how small nuclear
weapons can become due to the well-known critical mass
for radioactive material to start nuclear chain
reactions, and the rest of the appurtenances that a
nuclear bomb must have in order to function as a
controlled bomb. I don’t dispute all this. Although we
can’t predict the technology of the future on the basis
of what we know at present, let us suppose that planting
a nuclear bomb in a womb will indeed remain an
impossibility forever. But I don’t mean to narrow the
scope of what I am talking about to nuclear weapons. It
could be biological weapons: a “bomb” that spreads
deadly viruses, without even a need for an explosion, but
working merely by the actroid’s coughing or sneezing.
So when you read about “nuclear weapons” in this
article, please interpret that as a generic term for “weapons
of mass destruction”.)

Let’s see... I suspect you don’t
really object that this is a plausible scenario. What you
really believe (or maybe just hope) is that it
will be us, our side, our army that
will acquire such marvelous weapons. The enemy won’t
have them, and so we, with our superior technology, will
emerge victorious and live happily ever after, having
crushed the barbarians. Yey!

It is typically Americans who display
this attitude regarding hi-tech weapons. (If you are an
American and are reading this, what I wrote doesn’t
imply that you necessarily display this attitude; note
the word “typically”, please.) The American culture
has an eerily childish approach toward weapons, and also
some outlandish (but also child-like) disregard for human
life. (Once again, you might be an intelligent, mature
American, respecting life deeply; it is your average
compatriot I am talking about.) Here is what an American
journalist wrote in Washington Post, on May 6, 2007:

“So where does the air vehicle
called the Predator [i.e., a flying robot] fit? It is
unmanned, and impressive. In 2002, in Yemen, one run
by the CIA came up behind an SUV full of al-Qaeda
leaders and successfully fired a Hellfire missile,
leaving a large smoking crater where the vehicle used
to be.”

Yes, just as you read it: a number of
human beings were turned to smoke and smithereens, and
this pathetic journalist, whoever he is, speaking with
the mentality of a 10-year-old who blows up his toy
soldiers, reports in cold blood how people were turned to
ashes by his favorite (“impressive”, yeah) military
toys. Of course, for overgrown pre-teens like him, the
SUV was not full of human beings, but of “al-Qaeda
leaders” (as if he knew their ranks), of terrorists, sub-humans who aren’t worthy
of living, who don’t have mothers to be devastated by
their loss. Thinking of the enemy as subhuman scum to
be obliterated without second thoughts was a typical
attitude displayed by Nazis against Jews (and
others) in World War II. (The full article, of
which I used to supply the link here, but removed it later so as not to
reveal anymore the name of its author, explains how soldiers become
sentimentally attached to their robots, extensions of their teenage-time
toys, obviously ascribing to them a higher value than human life.)

If this attitude were marginal among
Americans, if the above story were a fluke, I wouldn’t
worry at all. Any moron can say anything they like in a
free society, and even have their imbecilic thoughts appear
in print. The problem from my point of view is that I’ve
seen the above attitude again and again in the years that
I lived in the U.S.A. Once, the janitor of the building
where I used to do my research, having just learned some
sad news about American soldiers killed in Iraq, wondered
in a discussion with me: “Why don’t we just nuke ’em
all? Just turn the damn desert into glass and be done
with those ___” (I don’t remember what adjective he
used). You might think the janitor wasn’t very
sophisticated in his approach toward war or human lives.
But a few days later I was reading another article on a
web site, of which unfortunately I didn’t save the
address, that was reporting about a similar issue as the
one above: how to use robots to enter caves (it was known
that the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was hiding in
caves at the Afghanistan–Pakistan border back then),
search for terrorists, and blast the place, terrorists,
robot, and all; “to smoke them out of their holes”,
as that pinnacle of wisdom, the American president G.
W. Bush, said
immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

Note: For years
I was hesitating posting the pictures that follow, finding
them too disturbing. But now (2009), several years after the
American invasion and occupation of Iraq, and with spirits
having cooled down, I thought these pictures should see the
light of day on a page that gets several hits by American
readers, because back then (in 2003) such images never made
it through the sift of “kosher” photos, thought by the U.S.
media to be
inappropriate for the oh-so-sensitive American public. So, here they are; this is what — among others —
gave me a good kick and sent me out of the “land of the
free” (pre-teens and other juvenile thinkers), trying to
avoid feeling like an accomplice to their atrocities:

Mr. Al
Shawamra is holding in his
hands what was left of his
familyafter a U.S. aircraft bombed his
home.

Iraqi children after
a car-bombattack totheir
school, April 2007. Though the
perpetrators
were Muslim militants, this would not have
happened without the U.S. invasion.

These images do not give even the
slightest idea of the mayhem and carnage that “intelligent”
and “impressive” weapons of soul destruction inflicted on
the people of Iraq. Mr. American journalist, yes you, the
impressed one, do such pictures make no impression at all to
you? Are only smoking craters of terrorists worthy of your
admiration?
Or did you think that your war leaves behind only dead
bodies of “al-Qaeda leaders” and other
terrorists?

So, back to our subject: how nice it would be to have “actroids”
pregnant with nuclear or biological bombs, right? Perhaps
“nuctroids”, how about that? Of course, only we
would know they are actually nuctroids. To the terrorists
they would pass for normal people.

How immature must a person be
to believe something like that! Think of nuclear weapons.
When they first appeared on the scene, in the second half
of the 20th century, originally only five nations
possessed them: the U.S.A., the U.K., France, the Soviet
Union, and China (the victors of WWII). Gradually, more
countries entered the nuclear club, some of them openly
(India, Pakistan), others secretly (Israel). Now every
pariah state can have their nuclear toys, or dream of
acquiring them. At the time the present was written, there
was a strong fear in the international
community that Pakistan’s American-supported dictator would
be overthrown by extremist Islamists, and the nuclear bombs that
Pakistan possesses would fall into the hands of
terrorists. It is no secret that Iran, an avowed enemy of
the U.S.A., is planning to build its own nuclear weapons.
Turkey, now an ally of the U.S., is planning to build its
own “energy-only” nuclear factories; but after one or
two decades Turkey might turn into a hub for radical
Islamism due to its gradually changing demographics, and
so in the future we might have another Iran-like
nuclear-power wannabe in the same region. So by what stretch of the
imagination and crooked logic will it become impossible
for pariah states, or even individuals, to possess and
command “nuctroids” in the foreseeable future?

Technology spreads. It’s not
something that can be confined within national borders.
Especially now, when we talk about globalization, we must
understand that knowledge “goes global” too, and this
includes the specialized knowledge needed to build an
extra-small weapon of mass destruction, or a human-like
deadly robot.

So how does working toward innocent
projects such as the automation of Bongard problems tie
in into all this?

As I explained earlier, it’s not just
the automation of Bongard problems that’s involved. It’s
about the automation of cognition. Anyone who
works toward making machines intelligent, and especially
wanting machines to “come alive”, must understand the
grave ethical issues involved in such an endeavor.
Consider the following email message sent by a student at
Indiana University (IU, the academic institution where I
did my Ph.D.) in 2008 (my emphasis):

Hello everyone,

The IU Robotics Club is having
its first meeting this Thursday,
January 17th. We are a group of undergraduates and
graduates hailing
from many fields with a common interest in all
robotics, automata,
synthetic life and artificial intelligence. We
encourage people to make
stuff come alive, whatever they decide that
means.

Does anyone at IU realize the ethical
issues that these kids are toying with? Is it really more
important to be concerned with cloning and stem cell
research? Does it not matter at all that these kids, or
maybe their children, might be turned to a loose
collection of quantum particles some time in the
not-so-remote future by the fruits of their own
toy-making? Or is it that what causes the indifference is
the remoteness of the future, whereas other
ethical issues in science are present here-and-now? But
don’t the seriousness of the nuctroid threat
and its logical inevitability make any
impression on anyone?

Globalization as a possible counter-argument

My ex-advisor in research offered the following
counter-argument (or rather, a hope of his), recently:

About your concerns about
automated weapons, I see your point and I agree that
there are plenty of bad possibilities on the
horizon. However, I see it as a kind of race
between those bad prospects, on the one hand, and on
the other hand, the unification of humanity via
things like the Web and cell phones and email and so
forth. It seems to me that the tighter we are all
tied together into one big net, so that we all share
one common fate, the lower the probability of global
conflict, and the more cooperation there will be
between people (and peoples). I hope that the world’s
shrinking will occur more rapidly than the progress
of weapons research. One never knows, of course.

Right, one never knows. I am not
expressing absolute certainties here, even when I talk
about the “inevitability” of an event (see above). I
thought about my ex-advisor’s idea, but my conclusions
were not as optimistic as his. Specifically, I don’t
think that globalization will turn the Earth into a big,
happy village. Far from it. The financial distance
between the richest rich and the poorest poor worldwide
seems to be increasing, decade after decade. Whereas affluent societies
become more affluent, not only the poor remain equally poor, but
their numbers keep increasing. Affluent societies curb their
birthrate, whereas poor ones keep it fixed and high. Poverty
generates more poverty, in a vicious circle. The result of
globalization can be curiosities such as TV antennas jutting out
of straw-made huts in Africa; or bare-breasted, colorfully
decorated black girls with a pair of earphones stuck in their
ears and an MP3

Here is an example: a young African
bare-breasted girl, with her colorful
beads, her necklaces, her water-pumpkin under the armpit,
and a bubble-gum in the mouth!
(GNU
Free Documentation License)

player
hung among their other ornaments (see image on the left). But globalization doesn’t
improve the living standards of the poor. It merely makes
it easier for the rich to plunder the natural resources
of the poor, as the Bush Oil Wars in the Middle East
prove, and as the indigenous tribes in Central and South
America know all too well. Globalization sends the “culture”
of the U.S.A. (“music”, Hollywood-like movies,
fast-food eating habits, Western-like dress codes, etc.)
to the rest of the world, but also sends natural
resources and wealth from other nations to
the U.S.A. This results in animosity of the have-nots
against the have-lots. I don’t see how globalization
will help bring all of us close to each other. If anything, I see
globalization as a factor that exacerbates the tension
and accelerates the time of an eventual global conflict,
because through globalization the poor come into contact
with some of the achievements of the rich, they learn
about them, while still remaining poor, so they
see what they’re missing and become jealous. In 1789,
in France, the masses of poor revolted against the
oligarchy of the aristocrats (and won). If trends
continue as today, some time in the future the global
village will explode in an analogous fashion, when the
masses of poor nations will again request their
fair share of the global pie from rich nations.
Whether the explosion will happen before the development
of nuctroids, I don’t know. But even if it happens
during the interim when the affluent societies will have
just developed and possess nuctroids whereas the poor
will not have acquired them yet, such hi-tech weapons
would be useless for the rich: you just can’t “nuke
’em all”. The mentality of “turning the desert into
glass” can only be entertained by naïve minds, and
result in their own — and our — demise. (I am not trying to express any superiority over
the said janitor’s intelligence here; if anyone with
his attitude can rationally argue against my claims, I’ll
be happy to learn about such arguments.)

A footnote, unrelated to the content of the above
argument:

It came to my attention, after a search that I did on the web for a
related topic, that someone expressed his shock at the above picture,
which shows a half-naked young girl. I must say, I was shocked, too,
learning about that person’s shock. When the finger points at the light,
some people focus on the finger. What I see in the above picture is a
healthy, young, and quite beautiful black girl, living her life in a
society that seems to be an example of precisely what I want to show: a
technologically unsophisticated society, but which probably gets the
benefits of occasional items of modern technology. The person who was
shocked looked at this picture and perhaps saw only a pair of breasts. I
pity him. The girl’s breasts, in my mind, have no sexual connotation,
but they underline the idea that she looks healthy, confident of herself
(just look at that face!), and perhaps blissfully unaware of the vast
technology that exists behind the mere gum that she chews in her mouth,
and of a huge world of mostly well-dressed people who are masters of
that technology. She would probably be shocked, too, learning that some
of those well-dressed people can be shocked looking at her two ornaments
— a most natural part of her feminine body. I would agree with her, and
would try to explain to her that some people of that society (the one
that makes the chewing gums and is an ardent consumer of them), and
specifically males, never really grow up. A pair of breasts has on them
the magical lure that the carrot has on the rabbit. They focus on them,
so their minds from then on can think of only one thing: “breasts!” But
I wrote this article for more mature readers.

The “So what if you abstain from such research? Others will
do it anyway” argument

I am fully aware of this. A single
person’s abstinence can have absolutely no consequence
in the overall scheme of things. My purpose is not to
hide my head in the sand like the ostrich, but to
raise people’s awareness about this problem. Nor
do I expect that a single person’s voicing of his
concern is enough. (I don’t know if I am alone; I
suspect I am not, but I haven’t heard anyone else’s
voice on this issue; contact me if you are aware of others speaking about
this.) If others want to undertake the development of nuctroids, let
them feel free to do it (and face the consequences), but count me out. I
choose to “cast my vote” in favor of voicing my concern. My hope is that
in this way a larger percent of people will see the seriousness of this
matter and join their voices, putting pressure on society and
administrations to do something and take some measures.

In the late 19th – early 20th century, with
the anticipated spread of the use of electricity, some
people were afraid that others would be electrocuted, so
electricity was perceived as a public threat. Such
worries, which appear even funny today, were not baseless
or useless. It was because of such worries that measures
were taken and technology developed that made it possible
to build essentialy harmless electrical devices.

The “This sounds like another doomsday scenario” argument

I agree that skepticism is a healthy
attitude, and I myself am skeptical about many issues. I
am skeptical even about the threat that I foresee and
explain in the present article. But, weighing rationally
what I know about human nature and how far technology can
reach on one hand, and any objections that I might have
due to skepticism on the other hand, I find that the “nuctroid
threat” weighs more. It is up to the reader to think
about performing their own weighing before reaching any
conclusions. Just a word of caution: just because some
imaginative doomsday scenarios did not materialize in the
past does not imply that there is really no danger ever
— one might be caught in the trap of “the boy crying
‘Wolf!’”, in other words. It is a fundamental
feature of the human mind to try and categorize,
pigeonhole situations; so if one has seen a number of
failed doomsday scenarios, one is strongly tempted to
categorize everything that appears similar as “Oh, it’s
just one of those”. I believe this feature of our
cognition does not help us in this case; one must
rationally list the reasons why this is “just one of
those”, and ponder over the accuracy of such reasoning.

A related issue, specific to the people in the
U.S.A., is that after the 9/11 attacks Americans went
through a period of intense fear, an apprehension about
anything that could upset their easy and cozy way of
living. Now, after several years without another attack
on U.S. soil, they have timidly started exiting from this
period of apprehension, and the first articles that look
at their “age of fear” with a critical eye (and even
a sense of humor) have started appearing (e.g., read this one). The danger here is that they will experience
what I call the “swing of the pendulum to the other
extreme position”; i.e., when you release a
pendulum from one extreme position it doesn’t go
straight to the equilibrium point but swings all the way
to the other extreme first.
Similarly, Americans might
feel disdain for the kind of danger that I describe here,
and treat it as just another one of those hateful
scenarios that used to send chilling sparks of fear up
and down their spines in the past. It’s a natural
psychological reaction to try and turn one’s face away
from what causes discomfort. But Americans can sense that
this is not a case like those they’re familiar with, if
they realize that the “reign of terror” was a cheap
trick employed for years by their post-9/11
administrations in order to reduce civil liberties and
pass antidemocratic policies with no resistance. I am not
a member of their administration, not even an American. I
am speaking as a person concerned about fellow people and
the future of humanity as a whole.

The “Where do you draw the line” argument

This is the argument that some
correspondents have put forth and, honestly, I find the hardest to
counter. The argument says that the individual who invented the knife
(suppose there was such a prehistoric individual) cannot be held
responsible for all the stabbings that have taken place since then. Sir
Isaac Newton cannot be held accountable for others using calculus to
find with precision the parabolic orbit of a pelted object, such as a
cannon ball. James Clerk Maxwell cannot be accused of the electrocution
of criminals (or suspected criminals) in various States of the U.S.A.
The more general a discovery is, the more likely it is that a way will
be found to apply it so that it will result in the loss of life. One
should draw a line between creating a scientific theory and consciously
manufacturing weapons using that theory, with the express intent to
kill.

OK, so where
does research in theoretical cognition fall? On which side of the line?

Looking at it coolly, it seems that
it falls on the same side like Newton’s calculus, Maxwell’s
electromagnetism, and even the unknown ancestor’s blade-making activity.
Designing cognitive architectures, and implementing ideas in computer
programs in order to see whether the ideas work or not, without having
in mind how these ideas can be used against humanity, does not seem to
be a culpable activity. It’s just that, although I don’t have any mis-applications
in mind, I can’t help but think that others will find mis-applications
in their own minds, without doubt. So, though now I have started working
again in cognition (but in isolation), I can’t avoid seeing the problem
coming.

The “Human (not humanoid) bombs are already here!” argument

All right, all right, I admit — that finally did it.
I throw the towel.

First, allow me to note that
this section (up to the horizontal line) was added in late 2013, after I
had restarted my research as I explained in the top-note (the one in red
letters), and after having reconsidered the situation in the world, as
it unraveled after 2006, which is the year that I quit my research. The
part of this document that follows after the horizontal line belongs to
the original train of thoughts of mine. But let me comment on the above
argument.

Several people pointed out to me — and I thank them
for their earnest will to discuss with me and consider these issues —
that we don’t need to wait for the high-tech nuctroids/humanoids/whatever-oids
to arrive for the mayhem that I fear of to be realized. Human bombs are
already a reality!

Indeed, even several years before 2006 (actually right
after G. W. Bush invaded Iraq and caused the demolition of Saddam
Hussein’s security forces) “human bombs” appeared, in the form of
Islamist suicide-bombers: people who (1) are dead-certain that there is
an afterlife, (2) are dead-certain that their Prophet will receive them
with open arms in paradise if they blow up those they consider their
enemies (including women with their babies, children, and old people),
and (3) are dead-certain that their Prophet will reward them with
virgins (whose number varies, but according to some venerable ancient
Islamic holy texts is equal to 72), who will allow them to have what
they were denied in this life and missed badly: sex; but which in
paradise will be non-stop, and to eternity. Having all
those dead-certain convictions, they go and happily blow people up to
smithereens. Oh, I forgot a fourth dead-certain conviction: (4) that
their enemies will go to hell no matter what they do, so they
actually help them arrive there earlier, and this is something Allah
approves.

Yes, Islamist suicide-bombers existed before I started
writing this article. But because they typically cause mayhem in the
Muslim world only, and because they belong to that side, not to
the side that I fear will abuse its technological prowess, they somehow
didn’t fit in my picture of “technologically caused disaster”.

Fine. But I failed to realize (at least soon enough)
that they represent a danger which is much more immediate, real, and
which does all that I fear of, without even the help of
technology! Wouldn’t it be better to focus one’s attention on the
here-and-now, instead of the possibly/maybe/perhaps danger that I
described in the present text? Which tools, other than those that
technology makes, can one hope to use in order to educate people,
hoping to take them out of their dead-certain convictions? Or, if that
is impossible or extremely limited, hoping to have as few young people
attracted to such self-destructing ideas as possible?

So, finally such thoughts got the better of me and I
gave in. I re-started my research in 2011, and had some nice results
that will be announced in due time. I do feel a little bit like a
traitor to my own ideas, but when I think of it rationally I know that
my critics were right.

As I said, what follows belongs to my original train
of thoughts.

What can be done?

Seeing the problem coming is one
thing, but figuring out what to do is quite another. I do
not want to give the impression I know how we can deal
with the nuctroid threat. All I can do is propose the
following:

Research that aims toward making
machines appear human must be marked as highly dangerous,
or ethically suspicious at least. Such research should
not be funded. Note, I am not advocating an enmity
toward all research in artificial intelligence and
cognitive science; only a discouragement of the
research that explicitly leads to the development of
machines that can deceive humans, and pass as
humans. To have computers that can compose high-quality
music, for instance, or translate between languages, is
not directly dangerous. Nor is it dangerous to have self-aware,
conscious machines. If anything, a self-aware machine
that places a high value on its preservation, and on the
preservation of humanity, is probably more difficult to
persuade to go and explode itself among people —
Islamist suicide bombers notwithstanding. This last
thought implies that sophistication is probably a desired
attribute of machines: the more self-conscious, the less
of a nuctroid threat; but self-conscious they must be by
law, not by the goodwill of the free market; and
self-conscious means human-like in mind, not in
form and external appearance. We do need robots that work
for us, but not robots that trick us into misidentifying
them.

High school children, undergraduates, graduates, and in general all people involved in the
educational systems of the U.S.A., Europe, Japan,
Australia, and elsewhere, must abandon their naïve
attitude of “Let’s make stuff come alive”, and
become aware of the seriousness of such an endeavor.
Children cannot discover the seriousness of this matter
by themselves, so it is up to the academic institutions
to educate their students and take appropriate measures.
If universities, such as my own IU, can be so serious
about the ethics of procedures that involve psychological
experiments on human subjects and even on animals (as
I know they do from first-hand experience),
then it is high time they
become even more serious about what machines their
students in artificial intelligence and cognitive science
are experimenting on.

Americans should grow up and abandon their
juvenile-minded treatment of weapons, high technology,
and the value of “non-American human life” (which,
sadly, to many of them is synonymous with “lowlife”).
This is the hardest part of my proposal. One can’t just
tell an entire culture to do this, don’t do that. In
this case matters are complicated by the existence of an
elite rich class in the U.S.A., in the interests of which
is to keep the public uninformed, having my janitor’s
“Let’s nuke ’em all” attitude, because the lack
of public awareness increases the short-term benefits of
the rich class (they support wars, which help them
manufacture, advertise, and sell more weapons abroad, for
instance). This is compounded by the American myth that
it doesn’t matter if you are poor, because if you’re
capable enough you can raise your social status all the
way to the top. Having believed this myth for decades,
the poor among the Americans don’t mind much being kept
at bay (i.e., being poor and thus staying at my janitor’s
level of political and educational sophistication)
because the notion that anyone can rise to the top
sweetens the pill and makes it more palatable. I must
note here, I believe the so-called American dream of “rags-to-riches”
is a myth for at least two reasons: first, it does
matter if you are born Black, Hispanic, etc. — after
all, what is the percent of non-white billionaires in the
U.S.A.? And second, it is analogous to winning the
jackpot in a lottery: yes, you can be the sole lucky
winner, and you can even nurture your ego by thinking
that winning in life is not a matter of mere luck, but the
existence of the jackpot itself presupposes a vast number
of losers; what are the chances that you’ll have the
guts and wits to be the sole winner and rise high in
social status? And is it really so attractive to live in
a society with a handful of winners and millions of
losers, resulting in the hordes of homeless people
who search in the garbage, while you — the “good Christian” — look at
them with disdain for they didn’t make it and ended up being among the
losers?

Note: Here follow some
numbers that support my previous position. According to a survey that appeared
in a magazine sometime between 2003 and 2006, of
which I regret to have not written down the name
(it was intimated to me by some friends of mine), it
can be inferred that 17% of Americans believe that
they belong to the top 1% of financial status in the
U.S.A. The corresponding percent among the British is
around 3%. When Americans were asked if they hoped
whether they would reach the top 1% some time in
their lives, the percent of those who thought so
doubled (34%). This means that 16% of Americans
delude themselves about their present situation, and
a whopping 33% (one third!) delude themselves about
their future situation. I consider that poll to be
very revealing regarding American self-delusions; if
anyone knows its source, please let
me know. (Special thanks to
a reader, Walter van Huissteden, who brought to my
attention this article, which reports various opinion poll results
that seem very similar to those I refer to here; the
original source of my data seems to be a July 2000
Gallup poll.)

For the above reasons, I realize the
tremendous difficulty of talking to an entire culture.
So, the only course of action that seems conceivable to
me is to raise their awareness by having as many voices
as possible talk about this issue in unison, and do this
particularly in the most anarchic, relatively
uncensored-from-above medium of communication that
humanity has ever known: the Internet.